Eurovision 1975: Everything goes a bit Ding-Dinge-Dong, but far more importantly, get ready for Boom Bang a Blog's favourite Eurovision song. Ever.

Although Bjorn from ABBA once went on record as saying: "Winning Eurovision was like Sweden winning the World Cup", preparations for Scandinavia's largest nation to host the Contest for the first time was not met with the same level of pride and excitement from the man in the street that had happened in Dublin four years previously.

It seems incredible to imagine anyone being all that bothered, but huge protests were held through the streets of the Swedish capital about Eurovision coming there, with its close connections with popular music (AKA capitalist record companies). There were calls for the Contest to embrace national folk music rather than pop songs and the rumpus got so involve,d it played some part in Sweden taking a year out from the competition the following year.

However, 19 countries - the largest field thus far - did gather in the S:t Eriksmassan Alvsjo (pictured - as it looks today), a collection of halls on the outskirts of the city usually used for the handing over of the Nobel Peace Prize, on March 22 to lock melodic horns. The exterior of the hall was a very distinctive orange in 1975, so the set designer probably thought all that blue was more soothing for the eyes of an audience who'd had to queue up right next to it before the show. A pity it soon became a very dull backdrop for the hundreds of millions of television viewers.

There was a very clever idea for the postcards, though. Before their song, each act was seen, in a pre-filmed clip, descending a spiral staircase somewhere in the bowels of the venue, where a set of paints and a canvas was waiting for them. They then had to paint self-portraits and their nations' flag on the canvas, with the finished product appearing in a frame before cutting back to the hall for the start of the song. It was a simple idea, but a rather good one.

Your easily-assembled flatpack facts about Sweden's first Eurovision:

(a) "Even when your lover is gone, gone, gone. Sing Ding ding dong." Yes, with such lyrics that would have Jacques Brel and Leonard Cohen whimpering in envy, Dutch group Teach-In won the 1975 Eurovision Song Contest with an impressive 152 points.

In the national final, three different acts sang the song (you can see the other two versions here and here). In a bizarre realisation of democracy, the audience got to choose which acts' Ding-Dinge-Dong would be sent to Stockholm by dropping a rose (surely it should have been a tulip?) they had been given into one of three buckets passed around the crowd. Each glamorous bucket-bearer wore a T-shirt with the name of a different act so the audience knew who they were voting for and, as Teach-In's bucket contained the most blooms at the end, off they went to Sweden.

Once in Stockholm, lead singer Getty Kaspers and her oddly-dressed band of boys were lumbered with the first spot in the draw, but even after a further 18 songs had been performed, the judges still hadn't encountered a song they preferred over the risible lyrics married up with the, admittedly, brilliantly catchy tune. The song was not a huge hit across the continent - it made number 13 in the UK charts - but it was covered by Edwyn Collins in 1998. So its influence lingers. Or should that be dingers?

(b) Giving Teach-In the closest run for its money was the UK. The British took silver for the ninth time in Sweden - and as this marked our 18th appearance at the Contest, it meant that 50 per cent of Royaume Uni's Eurovision songs so far had finished second.

In the last year - for a while - that the BBC selected one act who would perform six songs for the public to vote on, the peculiar choice was The Shadows, the guitar group better known for recording instrumentals and backing Cliff than performing pop stompers.

Lead singer Bruce Welch completely messing up the second line then turning to his bandmate and saying "I knew it..." may have been the factor which cost them the trophy as the crowd loved it to bits.

Two years earlier, Cliff's Power to All Our Friends had won the Song For Europe public postcard ballot with 125,505 votes. Let Me Be the One received just 17,477 postcards - only slightly more than the song which had finished last in Cliff's heat. The BBC were finding it harder and harder to encourage established acts to take on the Eurovision job each year and the response from the public was dipping dramatically. Let Me be the One did make number 12 in the charts, though - but critics found the song was too dated even for Eurovision (although I've always quite liked it, there are shades of ELO in the studio version).

Despite taking second place, with 139 points to Teach-In's 152 - and Britain leading for the first half of the vote, it was time for a change in the UK. We'll get to what happened there in our next Bluffer's Guide - and we think you might be rather chuffed with the outcome.

(c) Turkey feeling blue was mentioned earlier. And here's why, this is Semiha Yanki performing her nation's debut entry, wearing about 63 scraps of material sewn together.

She finished last. With three points that the scoreboard stubbornly refused to register.

(d) This was Malta's last appearance for a while. They did better than usual, finishing 12th rather than last, but every person on the planet has to experience Renato's Singing This Song at least once in their lives.

Imagine untangling those tassles after a big night out.

(e) The very first 'douze points' in the Eurovision Song Contest was awarded by the Dutch jury to Luxembourg. It was the ballad, Toi, written in French by the composers of Puppet on a String and Congratulations, Bill Martin and Phil Coulter. It couldn't have sounded more different than either of those songs, but the French lyrics came from Pierre Cour, who had helped write France's 1960 winner, Tom Pillibi.

"I had to audition against loads of other singers for this job. Ha-ha, not really..."

Eventually finishing fifth, it was performed in not-entirely-convincing French by Irish singer Geraldine, who went on to marry Phil Coulter. Hmm...

(f) But enough of the other lot, 'f' is for 'Fleming' - and by goodness, the monent I first heard this song in 1999, I knew it would be my favourite Eurovision song ever and 10 years later, nothing has come close to knocking it from its perch.

It's got soul, it's got pop, it's got a woman who looks like a cross between Ethel Merman and Bea Smith from Prisoner: Cellblock H shaking her sizeable booty in a green dress she hated so much she wanted to burn it straight after the show. It's got Madeline Bell from Blue Mink as one of the backing vocalists. Not only that, Bruce Welch of The Shadows said in the weeks running up to the event that this was the song everyone else had to beat. But, in one of the worst crimes ever, not just musically or Eurovisionally, this song finished 17th out of the 19 songs on show with just 15 points.

But ignore that minor, ugly fact. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, the German entry of 1975. It's Joy Fleming and Ein Lied Kann Eine Brucke Sein. Please, indulge me. Be upstanding.

Joy Fleming performs the greatest Eurovision song ever, Ein Lied Kann Eine Brucke Sein (A Song Can Build a Bridge), for Germany. She hated the dress too.

Not that I'm trying to push this song at all, but here it is performed at the German national final, as part of a TV show in 1991 and its bit in a Eurovision medley at the 2006 German final which got by far the biggest cheer from the audience. She discussed the dress (in German, obviously) and was reunited with it, when a portly gentleman sat down next to her while wearing the emerald horror, on the same show.

Much as I love Eurovision, I have to be honest, I don't have any ambitions relating to it. Well, that's not strictly true, I do have one; I want to see Joy Fleming perform this song live one day. Lord knows how I'm going to manage that.

And that's all for this Bluffer's Guide. If you're British, you won't want to miss 1976 - and you may need to clear some floor space to make room for a very well executed dance routine.